If your mental image of hacking is a bunch of scruffy teenagers in a basement furiously punching code into a screen as they try and beat a supercomputer in a virtual espionage contest, then you are probably getting your impressions from TV, not the real world.
Hackers perpetrating fraud on the internet are usually well-organised criminals using specially designed software tools. They don’t attack computers systems directly because computers are hard targets; they go after the people who use them.
Hackers target humans
“New threats come up daily so it’s easy for companies can get caught out. What we see now is that the vast majority of cyber-attacks against companies are human-targeted attacks. Those are hacking incidents that directly target people inside a company, tricking them into opening emails infected with spyware or similar kinds of tools to take control of systems. People aren’t machines; they’re vulnerable to psychological trickery.
“The traditional view of a cybersecurity team managing policy and risk for a company, coupled with a penetration test once a year should be long gone. Hackers create new threats to throw at us hourly, so combatting them requires constant vigilance.” —[ Phil Jackson, CTO, Uncloak.](https://uncloak.io/member/phil-jackson/)
Email malware
Email based hacking is the fastest growing crime category on Earth right now, according to US law enforcement and security agencies.
Email malware attacks target people to get access to computer systems. Even the most secure systems are used every day by humans, so we have always been the weakest link in cybersecurity.
With one cleverly worded email, hackers can persuade someone inside a company to open a document attachment that’s infected with malware and because the malicious file is being delivered right into the companies email, it can attack the system from the inside out.
That was exactly the mechanism used by the Russian hackers who compromised Hillary Clinton’s campaign HQ in 2016. The recently released indictment documents showed that email attacks targeting Jon Podesta and other high ranking campaign officials were the vector for the hackers to get spyware into the DNC computer system.
The FBI has recently warned that hackers are using phishing emails to get malware inside bank computer systems. Bank employees in the US are receiving phoney email messages that install viruses when they are opened. The malware spreads to the control systems for ATMs creating a security flaw which allows hundreds of thousands of dollars to be withdrawn fraudulently.
New tactics need new defences
No business can afford to ignore the threat of cyber-attack. Even small companies have contact lists and financial records that are valuable targets for attackers.
Hackers constantly mutate and improve the viruses they use, to find vulnerabilities, so companies need a cybersecurity system that can assess new threats in real time and respond to malware incursions as they happen.
Uncloak brings certified cybersecurity researchers and white-hat hackers together on a Blockchain based threat hunter platform to give companies up-to-the-minute protection.
Uncloak is a solution to zero-hour cyber-attacks that will be a watershed for cybersecurity protection.
Experience a demo of Uncloak right now on our website.
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